Project 2: Group Work / Animation Techniques - Rotoscoping/ Evaluation.

Playing Chinese Whipsers with Animation.
This was an exercise created to help us see how adventurous we could be when creating characters and putting them in motion.  As an experiment, the class decided to create a full cycle animation, using separate frames of an individual animation in itself. To begin with, we each started to draw a character, and inked it on the same page. After we did this, we then went over to the light boxes and passed each image to the left, meaning that the person to our left would be tracing over the image, but altering it slight as they did, in order to create a new frame. We all wanted to stretch out our morphing skills as far as they could go, ans as a result, created some rather obscure and disgusting outcomes!

7 Animations; 7 frames each.

Evaluation: 
I am really pleased with how this animation, as a class, worked out. Usually when it comes to drawing I love to have complete control over what I'm creating, and giving out my work for the rest of the class to enhance and build upon was definitely something of a trust exercise (or not in some cases.) We also were given this task to do with a limited time, which explains why the over all quality of the animation isn't to the best it could be. The way that totally different art styles have come together and made a pretty smooth metamorphosis series, shows how blending peoples' work together and exercises like this can show how someone can adapt to change create their own versions of something, to make a great outcome. 

Project 2: Week 1 Relfections.

Week 1 Reflections.

Days:	Monday 14th	Tuesday  15th	Wednesday 16th	Thursday 17th	Friday  18th	Saturday 19th	Sunday 20th
Work to Complete	Begin research on animal based animations.	Look at independent animations from smaller companies. Also look at all genres, not just animals.	Pick between 5 - 10 animations that relate to what I'm going for.	Look into more comedic roles in characters such as Carrot and Stick - Joel Trussel	CAD Session & more research for blog alone.	Documentation.	Reflection.

This week, I assigned myself to the researching of different animations, and letting them influence my character's initial sketches of it's walk cycle. 

Monday 14th October: I researched into mainly animal based animations, and found myself rather limited, as a lot of animations on animals were rather long and not focusing mainly on the character's movement. Although, "The First Time I Ran Away." did prove helpful with regards to four legged animals. 

Tuesday 15th October: I started to look into smaller animation companies, to try and see how lower budget companies would animate a characters walk cycle and what route they would take. I also spread out my research to all genres, not just animal based ones. 

Wednesday 16th October: I picked about 6 animations to research at that time, as I felt I found a good selection of smaller business animations, mostly from music videos. Fluorescent Hill proved to be a winner with its 3D and 2D dimensional sketchy music videos.

Thursday 17th October: I also looked into Joel Trussel's work, where I found "Carrot and Stick." This animation caught my attention immediately because the way it had been filmed and edited was completely different from the rest. 

Friday 18th October: Had CAD session where I was able to put together the research to be ready for hand in, as well as noting specific websites for more independent animation companies. 

My E4 Esting.

                     



My final project of the year was to create an E4 “Esting” for the E4 competition, in which I was to make a short (10 second) animation. At first I was at a complete loss for what to do, as I was given the choice of using almost any medium to create this short film. I eventually chose to concentrate more on live action, mainly because it was one of the styles of animation I hadn't had an in-depth go at yet. I chose to do my film in the style of a Charlie Chaplin silent film, where I dressed myself up as a mime and painted the E4 logo sped up, but also making it look like I had done it in real time. I spent only half an hour shooting footage, as I had space an scene set up prior to the shooting, and about two days full on animating and editing it. I struggled with one thing in particular, which was using Adobe After Effects to edit some of my film. I had the film split into about 3 pieces, which made it a lot easier to animate individual pieces. I learned quite a few new skills in this project, one of which as working with a green screen. At the start of my animation, I have actually used a green screen behind me when I pop up and smile, I think this turned out extremely well as even the little hairs and small pieces of fluff on my clothing turned out well and weren't cut off or blurred out. I also learned process of editing a film to make it look like a silent film, where there would be jumpy parts in the film as well as editing the sound of an old camera into the film under the music, just to give it that vintage effect. This was one of my favourite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation turned out!

Week 3: Post-Production.

Once I had completed filming all of my animation, I then began to start editing it all 

together. I started this process by adding both of my video files to Adobe After-Effects,

 and once I added them to the program, they both appeared on the time line, 

ready to edit.

Once I started to edit my film, there were a few problems I had encounters with, one of

 them being my body sticking out of the designated “White zone,” created on the set of 

my film. To combat this issue, I created a mask layer, and went through the animation, 

frame by frame, and moved the mask layer’s points according to where I went over the

 white zone, adding a key frame to every change.

Once I had completed the white zone problem, I played through the film to ensure that all

 of the mask were in the correct places. I found that the “feather,” effect on the mask, 

worked well because of the smoother edges, making the mask edges much less obvious.

 I also lowered the masks opacity slightly so that the edges of the mask would meet the 

edge of the film smoothly and would not show any mistakes.

After I had edited that part of film, I moved onto the introductory part of my film, which

 involved me being filmed in front of a green screen. I opened this video in After-Effects

 and began to edit out the “green,” by changing its colour from the "green screen" panel, to orange, and then managed to change the orange to white, blending it in with the background.

Once I had the film in the correct order and put together, I then went onto editing my film.

 To do this I opened up the film in Final Cut Pro and began to cut it up into individual 

segments. This then made it easier for me to see which parts I could edit first, and the 

first piece I began to edit was the longest part which happened to be me painting the

 large E4 logo.

Once I had used the tools in Final Cut Pro to speed up the selected piece of film, by

 about 200%, I then moved the three pieces apart from each other and began to edit the

 final piece of the film which was focusing on the E4 logo beginning to drip. I had to edit a

 few pieces of film out of it, because there was about three seconds worth of unwanted film

 where I was unsure how to stop the constant photo taking. This made the film run much

 more smoothly, and gave me the opportunity to edit in frames that I will in order to make

 this animation look more like a silent film.

To do this I opened up a document in Photoshop with the requirements of “web and devices,”

and began to draw out the frame that I will apply to my whole film. I changed the frame size 

at the top and bottom so that the frame was even, and coloured the entire frame black to 

match the ones that would be seen in most generic silent films.

I then opened up Adobe Illustrator and began to draw out the designs for the frame which I 

put into my film. I looked through a number of silent films and found that the frames of the

 films usually consisted of swirled and floral patterns, the kinds usually found on old fashioned

 mirrors. The design I went for was a swirl and tear drop look, and I tried numerous ways to 

draw out this image, including making my own style of paintbrush, and using the pen tool. 

I ended up using the paint tool, and edited the lines to make them much smoother and more

flowing, which in the end, worked out very well in my opinion. I then changed the size of the

 “tear drops” in order to make them the correct size for the Photoshop document.

I then chose the swirl pattern to go on both the top and bottom of the frame, which I got as 

central as I could, and added them as smart objects before putting them in their places for 

definite.

I put the images on a new layer and filled in the colour of the shapes to make them stand 

out fully against the black background. I did experiment with colour, where I used a mix of

 greys and even some pastel colours, before realising that pastel colours would not make

 much of a difference since the film is in black and white.

Once I have the swirls placed correctly onto the border, I started to place the tear drop 

shapes onto the new layer on my Photoshop file. I wasn’t quite sure where about I would 

put them to begin with, as I originally wanted them on the left and right sides, stretched 

apart like the swirls were, but I eventually decided on placing them at the corners of the 

border, and I feel this makes the frame look more ornate and like an antique rather than 

something more modern. Once I had completed the look of my frame for the animation, I 

saved it as a file to use for web and video purposes, and uploaded it into Final Cut Pro and 

stretched it across the time line, so that it would last throughout the entire film.

I then went on to make a take frame, where dialogue is displayed to show what the characters

 are saying in silent films. I began by making a canvas the size of what would be the space in 

the middle of the ornate frame I made, and then chose and old, but legible style text to use

 as the written dialogue. I feel as though this worked out very well as I asked numerous

 people as well as tutors and they thought it looked rather authentic, I also added two 

tear drop shapes around the words to exaggerate and pronounce the words more.

After I had all of the elements of my film put together in the time line, I went on to edit 

the visual part of my film by using a variety of the settings available on the Final Cut Pro

 program. I chose to edit the blur settings so that the picture was blurred slightly, making

 it look slightly older and less HD than it is.

Here it shows the final adjustments that I made, visually, I added some visual effects, such

 as the Gaussian Blur which is what made the film so blurred and old fashioned. I also added

 the “Bad Film,” filter, which helped me make most of my changes to my film. I increased 

the saturate amount, scratches, hairs, and dust ever so slightly, which gave the great old 

fashioned Victorian film effect, which turned my film into the exact thing I had envisioned. 

I also ended up increasing the jitter Amount as well, which gave the film its jumpy and edgy 

feel.

Once I had taken the appropriate measures to ensure my film looked as authentic as I could, I went on to “colour correct” the E4 logo in my film so that the colour would remain in the logo whilst everything else was in black and white. To do this I went to the “3 Way Colour Correct” option on the menu in Final Cut Pro, and made sure that the saturation and Lumo were not selected, and opened up the range of colours that I still wanted to be visible throughout the video, I chose anywhere between lilac and violet, as the E4 logo is somewhere between those two colours and this made the E4 logo retain it’s colour throughout the film.

I then went on to add some sounds onto my film, I obtained these sounds through the means

 of the sound program named “Logic Pro,” found on the computers in the Music and Theatre

 building, so there would not be any legal issues.

The sounds I added included that of an old school film projector, which links in with the editing

 I did of my film. This sound is very authentic, and even has the click sound at the start of it to 

signify the projector being turned on, this works very well with my film because there is a 

slight jitter at the beginning of the film. I was also searching for some form of Photoplay music,

 usually found in silent films which comes with a full orchestra, however I could not find a 

sample of music without copyright issues, so I went in search of simple piano music. And to

 my luck I found quite a few samples of piano music from all ends of the spectrum, from 

western style bar music, to chilling and spooky samples. I ended up choosing a simple and 

echoing piece. I feel as though this music sample is most effective because it isn’t so busy 

that it takes away attention from what’s going on in the film, and does the opposite by 

exaggerating the movements and happenings in the film.

    This was one of my favourite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got 

to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation

 turned out!

Week 2: Production.

At the beginning of week 2 I went straight into work and began filming myself, all mimed up, painting the E4 logo onto the board. To do this, I set a camera on a tripod at an appropriate distance and set it up with the computer program named Dragon Stop Motion. This camera was set up on a “Time-Lapse,” mode and was instructed to take a high resolution photograph every second. And as fast and efficient as this program is, it did require me to do the process rather slow so that the camera could catch almost every move I did.

I found that whilst painting the logo onto the board, time was going past rather quickly. I found that I would need about 250 frames to make this animation last about 10 seconds so I slowed down massively on my painting speed. I also added water to some splashes of paint in order to help make the paint run, but still maintain a thickness that would make it easier for the paint to drip and be caught by the camera.

When it came near the end of my recording time, I had made a number of drips using the paint, which had been caught by the camera and then will be viewed in real time, which I think is very effective! The state of the paint, I feel, looked good, as it stood out against the white paper well and almost looked 3D. And I feel that when I edit this piece and turn it into black and white, it will look very effective. I chose paint that was the perfect shade of purple to advertise the E4 logo, and I also found that after I have filmed this piece, I can use the colour correct tool in after effects to bring back this exact shade of purple once I have turned the film black and white.

After I had finished painting the giant E4 logo, I began to let the paint drip and waited until the paint had fully ran, not so much that it would ruin the painting, but create an awesome effect when sped up.  Once this had been completed I went on to creating my entrance to the film; I decided to give manual stop motion a try and shoot the images, one by one, by myself. However, I found that the footage was far too jumpy and incoherent because of the mix of me having to concentrate on taking the photographs and keeping my facial expression the same. Because of this I chose to shoot the film through the “Time-Lapse,” tool on Dragon Stop Motion.

I started making my Time-Lapsed video with me on the floor, and as I did with the time-lapsed painting video, I restricted myself from moving too fast in order to keep the video at a slower speed, otherwise the audience would not be able to see what is actually happening in the video.

As the video went on I maintained a constant slow speed and I think this worked so well because it made me look rather sinister, as I wasn’t smiling or showing any emotion. It even showed me blinking, and this being captured on stop motion makes me look rather doll-like and synthetic.

When it came to me making eye contact with the camera, I slowed down much more and waited until the third shot before I made any movement. This had a great effect on the film as it makes my emotions and movements much more clear and easy to read. The only downside I found was that it does make me look rather sinister, hopefully not sinister enough to actually scare anyone though.

I also found through shooting this part of my film, that having done my makeup at least 5-6 times prior to shooting my film, I had perfected the look and thought it looked rather successful throughout the film! When I looked over the film I did see that it was slightly jumpy, with me moving from side to side every so often, however I think this would work well in my film because the style of the film is set to be jumpy and sharp because of the supposed “age” of the film.

Week 1: Pre-Production

Week 1: Pre-Production.

After giving my pitch on my ideas regarding the Estings advertisement, I began to collect materials I would need in order to make my film successful. As I plan on dressing up for my animation, I concentrated straight away on finding face-paints, as I thought they would be the hardest to come across.

I bought one brand of pure black face paint for £3.99 and have used this brand before so I knew it wouldn’t cause havoc to my sensitive skin. The other two were donated to me via friends, the dish of white face paint is a base coat, which will turn flaky and come off easily, the white face-paint in the bottle is similar to make up primer, and will keep my face from peeling.

I then went onto collect a varied amount of brushes, from thick wallpaper brushes to fine silky ones, I tested these out to see which would help create the finest edge. I found that a medium sized bush and a very large brush both had very good line and texture, but as the film was going to be shot from a slight distance, and I black and white, it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. I did, however, choose both of the brushes to use, the large one for doing the majority of the painting and the medium sized one to fill in where the large brush could not.

I went to numerous hardware and home-ware stores both in Berwick and Newcastle in order to find a painting suit that I could wear during the filming of my animation. I wanted to use this piece of clothing because it gives the impression that the character has been given an actual job and not just wandering around painting walls. I finally found a “One Size Fits All,” deal and although it could be mistaken for a forensic suit, I feel it does the job well. I also took to the charity shops in search of a black and white striped top similar to the apparel of a Bohemian mime, but at the same time, not wanting to look like an escaped convict. In the end I chose not to wear the suit as it looks too modern, and a black and white top plus black trousers and braces is the typical get up of a mime that I finally decided on.

Once I had completed my task of finding materials, I went on to test out the face paints I had purchased in order to see which one looked most successful. I first tried out the style of the White Face Clown, using a soaked and squeezed sponge, I put the white face paint all over my face to which I then added the primer in order to keep the ace paint as smooth as it can be. I then used my black face paint and a thin paintbrush to draw large marks under my eyes, as well as large eyebrows giving off the look of mischievousness and curiosity. Although I find this style very effective, I think it would be too scary for younger viewers to watch, as the face is rather menacing and wouldn’t appeal to children, or even adults!

I then went on to Paint my face in the style of the Bohemian Mime. I found this task a little bit more enjoyable, as the Bohemian era was partly known for its wide variety of vibrant colours and sparkling jewelry. I applied the white face paint and primer as I had done for the White Face Clown, to make my face white but not shiny. I then went on to use the black face paint to go over my whitened eyebrows, eyelids and to add a stripe going over my right eye. I added two small dots on either side of my eyes to make them appear more doll-like and less scary. I feel as though this style works a lot better than the White Face Clown as it is much more toned down and not as terrifying, however I do feel that there isn’t a vast amount going on, on my face. I then decided to try and kind of morph between the two. This resulted in a much more defined and obvious look.

This is the image of the two kinds of faces put together, I felt that this style was a lot more successful, mainly because of the fact that it isn’t considered as scary as the White Face. I also think that the black lined lips work very well instead of a constant smile, because emotion can still be shown and the black will exaggerate that particular emotion. Having stripes over both eyes, I feel, is more effective as well because of the delicate lines going over my eyes, creating more of a pattern and abstract-ness than the White Face Clown. One thing I would change about this would be the eyebrows, as I think they are too ordinary and not animatedly bug, like most mimes’. I would also add mascara to this style, because as you can see in the photo, my eyelashes have turned white from the face paint. To this I would also add more liner around my eyes to make them more defined.

Once I had the design and style of my costume and face-up planned. I moved onto the actual pre-production of my set, which began with me obtaining a very, very large frame! This frame is about 6ft by 3ft and is large enough to fit the image of the E4 logo onto it. I felt as though this frame would be simple enough to film, and would need a white background to make it look like part of the room.